If you want to know more about a musician or a band, search for them on Google on your Android phone. Not only will you see the latest news and other online articles about the artist, but links to their music too. Tap on the app you want to play the song, and the opening notes come crashing into your ears straight away.

At the moment this tuneful feature is available only to music lovers in the US.

Google is the most-used search engine, but on your phone you're more likely to search for content in an app rather than starting with a search engine. To get you using Google search as a starting point on your phone, KitKat -- the latest version of Google's Android software for phones and tablets -- looks inside apps too, and can launch them from the search results.

In this case, Android automatically detects which music apps you have installed. If you have them on your phone, the results will offer you links to launch Google Play, iHeart Radio, Rdio, Spotify, TuneIn, or (Google-owned) YouTube.

US-based Google says it intends to expand the feature to other countries, adding relevant music services for those countries in the process. The big G names France-based Deezer as one of those services that could be added later.

Other apps that can be searched and launched by Android's Google Now feature include Wikipedia and IMDB.